United Nude 3D printing

Shoes that are made at the shoe store, or at home… Back in time, or the future? Perhaps both, you can 3D print your own shoes with your own desktop 3D printer.

August 6 saw the launch of the 3D printed United Nude ‘Float’ Shoes, which took place at the United Nude flagship store in New York City.

Joining forces with 3D Systems, United Nude enjoy pushing the boundaries of forward thinking, and combining technology and fashion.

An interactive touch screen console was utilized for the 3D printing of the shoes, which was connected to four of 3D Systems Cube 3D printers, 3D printers designed for consumers at home and ideal for in-store 3D printing.

Assembly of the shoe

Endless color options

Rem D Koolhaas: “We have been using 3D printing for the product development of our shoes ever since our first shoes, dating back to 2001. Since then we have seen a massive evolution in 3D printing.

In recent years we have made fully printed 3D printed finished shoes with Iris Van Herpen for her runway show, which were made with state of the art laser sintering 3D printing, but we never designed a fully functional 3D printed shoe that was made with an entry level desktop printer. We felt extremely challenged by the idea of developing a shoe for the 3D Systems Cube 3D Printer. In fact, this new $999.- printer is a very compact and easy to use machine, but to print something that’s actually bigger than its printable footprint needed a lot of thought and creativity.

We designed the shoe in three parts that just simply link into each other, forming the final product. The fact that the shoe is made out of three parts actually adds to the design. To make the shoe more comfortable we added a hand cut rubber outsole. Even though this shoe is wearable, I don’t think it’s to be compared with any more conventional shoes in regards to comfort, but that’s also not the point of this design. This design is about creating something beautiful & interesting and it’s about experimenting, moving forward and about learning.”